Blue Garuda wrote:Don't their banks now own the USA and most of Europe?

There might be major contracts for purchasing tracts of land but it is people that make up a country - and we evolved out of slavery. So no, wealthy banks cannot own people or a nationality.

My point was that if Chinese banks prop up the many of the world's economies then they need take no notice of their opinions on human rights, or much else.

I admire your optimism. Not to overplay the 'conspiracy' angles, national economies are subject to the whims of major corporations and banks. Politicians in the pockets of those organisations run countries, especially in countries where they are permitted to bankroll election campaign or 'advise' a country's leaders how they should behave.

That's an aside. I have advised many who are now entering the world of work to seek out those with links to Chinese and Indian economies. European nations stopped mattering as world powers and empires long ago - I wonder how US citizens will react when their nation's time as a world leader wanes even more.

Just a personal view - I'm not politician or economist, it's just what it looks like from here.

The number of Tibetans burning themselves to death in protests against Chinese policy has grown very fast recently: the first self-immolation was in 2009, but 22 of the 30 incidents happened in the past year. And while at first it was only Buddhist monks and nuns who were setting themselves on fire, in the past month both a teenage girl and a mother of four have chosen to die in this gruesome way.

The Chinese response has been repression and abuse. The affected provinces have been flooded with security forces, and Communist Party officials have condemned the protesters as anarchists, terrorists and rebels – or, in the words of one official, “rats” born of “weasels”.

The state-controlled media claim that the deaths are orchestrated by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, who has lived in exile in India since 1959. They also insist that the Dalai Lama’s real goal is separatism – the revival of the independent Tibet that existed until the Chinese troops marched back in in 1951 – although the protesters themselves demand only the return of the Dalai Lama and respect for their culture and religion.

The Chinese media work themselves up into a lather of indignation about the alleged intention of these “separatists” not only to fracture the sacred unity of the Chinese homeland, but to expel the large number of Han Chinese settlers who have immigrated to Tibet. As the Xinhua News Agency put it: “How similar it is to the Holocaust committed by Hitler on the Jews!”

Well, not similar at all, really. Even though many Tibetans fear “cultural genocide” if the Han Chinese immigrants become a majority in Tibet (and they are probably right to suspect that this is why Beijing subsidises the immigration), there is still a distinction between Panzer divisions and extermination camps on the one hand, and monks and teenage girls burning themselves to death on the other.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama goes on doing what he does best: he keeps Tibet before the world’s attention. As part of that process he visits world leaders and collects various honours like the Nobel Peace Prize – and he never attacks the Chinese regime directly.

Instead, he patiently and politely insists that China must respect Tibet’s cultural and religious autonomy. He never demands Tibetan independence, nor does he let his followers in the large Tibetan exile community talk about independence. And, of course, he laments the self-immolations.

Yet the Dalai Lama also believes that he will one day return to Tibet. He is 76 years old, but he is in good health, “so I am expecting another 10, 20 years,” he told a BBC interviewer this week. “Within that (time), definitely things will change”.

What does he think will change? Surely not the attitude of the Chinese Communist regime, which will never allow him to return to Tibet since it fears that would unleash a great wave of anti-Chinese nationalism. Well, then, he must think the Chinese regime itself will eventually change.

Of course he does. Most people who know any history think that. Despite the death of Communist ideology in China, the regime has managed to stay in power for almost a quarter-century since the Tienanmen Square protests of 1989, but it has been helped by continuous, high-speed economic growth. Would it survive a major recession?

Nobody knows, but there is certainly a reasonable chance of regime change in China in the next ten or twenty years. And that would be Tibet’s great opportunity, as the Dalai Lama must know.

The precedent is what happened when Communist Party rule ended in the old Soviet Union twenty-one years ago. The Soviet Union was the old Russian empire under a new name, and only about half of its population was ethnically Russian. When it collapsed, all the republics with non-Russian majorities took their independence.

The People’s Republic of China is more homogeneous: 90 percent of its population is Han Chinese. But in the few areas that still have non-Chinese majorities, like Tibet, separation would be possible when regime change happens in Beijing – on two conditions. It would have to happen fast, and it can only happen if the Chinese people do not see Tibetans as enemies.

It has to happen fast because the window of opportunity doesn’t stay open long: once a new regime is firmly established, no politician who wants a long career will take the blame for negotiating “the division of the motherland.” And if the Chinese worry that an independent Tibet would fall under the influence of their great Asian rival, India, or if they are under attack by Tibetan terrorists, they will be very reluctant to let the Tibetans go.

The Dalai Lama certainly knows all this, too. His job, therefore, is to keep the spirits of the Tibetans up while waiting for the window of opportunity to open – and to keep the impatient younger generation from launching some futile “war of liberation” involving terrorist attacks in the meantime. He has been successful in that for a long time, but the wave of self-immolations is a warning that patience may be running out.

In Mahayana Buddhism the ancient Lotus Sutra remains one of the holiest texts. In chapter twenty-three, the bodhisattva Medicine King makes the offering of his own body to the Buddha by performing various acts of self-mutilation, including burning his body: “Anointing his body with fragrant oil...and calling on his transcendental powers, [he] set fire to his body...The Buddhas in these worlds simultaneously spoke out in praise, saying: ‘Excellent, excellent, good man! This is true diligence.’”4 While many scholars have argued that this sacrifice was meant to be taken metaphorically, ardent believers have often interpreted the sutra literally and with dire consequences.5 Despite the interpretative debate, the actions of the bodhisattva in the Lotus Sutra are indisputable and therefore provide the doctrinal basis for Buddhist self-immolation.Evidence for self-immolation can be found in Buddhist practice as well. In a letter addressed to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on June 1st 1965, Thich Nhat Hanh describes one manifestation of self-immolation in modern Mahayana practice: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/unde ... osberg.pdf

nirmal wrote:In Mahayana Buddhism the ancient Lotus Sutra remains one of the holiest texts. In chapter twenty-three, the bodhisattva Medicine King makes the offering of his own body to the Buddha by performing various acts of self-mutilation, including burning his body: “Anointing his body with fragrant oil...and calling on his transcendental powers, [he] set fire to his body...The Buddhas in these worlds simultaneously spoke out in praise, saying: ‘Excellent, excellent, good man! This is true diligence.’”4 While many scholars have argued that this sacrifice was meant to be taken metaphorically, ardent believers have often interpreted the sutra literally and with dire consequences.5 Despite the interpretative debate, the actions of the bodhisattva in the Lotus Sutra are indisputable and therefore provide the doctrinal basis for Buddhist self-immolation.Evidence for self-immolation can be found in Buddhist practice as well. In a letter addressed to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on June 1st 1965, Thich Nhat Hanh describes one manifestation of self-immolation in modern Mahayana practice: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/unde ... osberg.pdf

MY REPLY reread the chapter 23 he wasnt a human,he was in the pureland,he was in a palce where their is no pain or suffering,and no KILLING,or murder or death he had eternal life,read carefully HE MANIFESTS ALL PHYISICAL FORMS notice how with his mind he turns his body into fire.the burning of his body was the ultimate sacrifice,for he gave up eternal life in the pureland,and the most beautiful body(pureland body) so he could be reborn into the human realms to teach Buddhism.when he goes to the human realms(which has asuras unlike the pureland) he doesnt burn his entire body for it is a bad example he sets his arms on fire only(for which he miraclaisouisly grows back to show them the power of Buddhism)at which point READ CAREFULLY it states if we want to EMULATE his actions we should burn a finger or one toe(samadhi burnings with hot rocks are still common in china today)BUT the greatest thing we can do in this world is to not burn ourselves the greatest thing we can do is to accept the Lotus sutra.

human burning to death is not allowed in the lotus sutrathe burning of he pureland body was the leaving of the pureland and the sacrifice of bliss/happiness and eternal life(in that body)so that he would be reborn into our miserable existance(which is why its the greatest sacrifice)=hence offering.